Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has an­nounced a $4.087 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion for pub­lic util­i­ties in the 2027 Bud­get, up from $3.395 bil­lion last year, out­lin­ing plans to im­prove wa­ter sup­ply, ex­pand elec­tric­i­ty ac­cess and ad­vance three pro­posed de­sali­na­tion plants, while in­tro­duc­ing a sur­charge for high-con­sum­ing res­i­den­tial elec­tric­i­ty cus­tomers.

About one in ten house­holds in Trinidad and To­ba­go is ex­pect­ed to pay a high­er elec­tric­i­ty sur­charge of five cents per kilo­watt-hour above 3,000 kilo­watts from Jan­u­ary 1, 2027, Tan­coo said.

The mea­sure is ex­pect­ed to gen­er­ate $17.8 mil­lion in ad­di­tion­al rev­enue, which would help fi­nance the ex­ist­ing elec­tric­i­ty sub­sidy for house­holds with very low con­sump­tion.

Mean­while, ap­prox­i­mate­ly $60 mil­lion is pro­posed for the con­tin­u­a­tion of the 35 per cent Re­bate Pro­gramme in fis­cal 2027.

Tan­coo said 137,378 cus­tomers ben­e­fit­ed from that pro­gramme be­tween May 2025 and June 2026, while more than 13,000 peo­ple re­ceived sup­port through the Util­i­ties As­sis­tance Pro­gramme over the same pe­ri­od.

The pro­gramme as­sists with util­i­ty bills and wa­ter tanks, and pro­vides so­lar pan­els for low-in­come house­holds be­yond the eco­nom­ic reach of the elec­tric­i­ty grid.

On wa­ter sup­ply, Tan­coo said the Gov­ern­ment was ad­vanc­ing pro­posed de­sali­na­tion plants at Ma­yaro, Morne Di­a­blo and To­ba­go.

The state­ment did not pro­vide the plants’ pro­ject­ed costs, pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ties or com­ple­tion dates.

De­scrib­ing the sys­tem in­her­it­ed by the Gov­ern­ment, he point­ed to age­ing pipelines, in­ter­mit­tent sched­ules and com­mu­ni­ties still await­ing de­pend­able pipe-borne wa­ter.

Tan­coo re­port­ed that 12 new and re­fur­bished pipeline projects, in­volv­ing more than 21 kilo­me­tres of mains, had im­proved ser­vice for 66,842 peo­ple dur­ing fis­cal 2026.

He said new pro­duc­tion wells at Cara­pal, Chatham and St Ann’s strength­ened wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty for 24,064 peo­ple, while the Freeport and Mar­aval Wa­ter Treat­ment Plants were up­grad­ed.

The Wa­ter Sup­ply and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) re­paired 11,835 leaks be­tween Jan­u­ary and May 2026, and sev­en tank farms were com­mis­sioned.

Across the wider stor­age pro­gramme, more than 9,375 house­holds are ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit from greater re­silience dur­ing sup­ply in­ter­rup­tions.

In To­ba­go, the min­is­ter re­port­ed up­grades to two boost­ers at Bloody Bay and progress on re­fur­bish­ment of the Hills­bor­ough Dam spill­way. Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the Beetham Waste­water Treat­ment Plant is in­tend­ed to strength­en a sys­tem serv­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 302,000 peo­ple.